How to Avoid a Climate Catastrophe

Professor Geoffrey BeattieEdge Hill University

Talk for Gresham College at the Museum of London 30th September 2019

We need a green revolution

Political focus, infrastructure….people’s behaviour, choices, priorities.

People are the key (national level, cities/towns, communities, groups, families, individuals.

Psychology, therefore, is central.

Climate change The scientific evidence is overwhelming.

Remarkable scientific consensus on climate change

– ‘remarkable’ because it is rare to see this degree of scientific agreement on anything.

‘Climate change threatens the basic elements of life for people around the world.’

So why hasn’t the message about climate change got through?

1. Understanding2. Belief3. Our sense of personal vulnerability4. Our sense of personal responsibility 5. Behaviour and action

1. Understanding

There is a great deal of confusion. Confusion between ‘weather’/‘climate’, and the tendency to

use examples of weather as evidence against climate change.

The man on the bus in Sheffield. Donald Trump (December, 2017) tweeted: ‘It could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could

use a bit of that good old Global Warming.’.

2. BeliefOnly 52% of people in U.S. ‘believe that global

warming is happening.’

(figure fluctuates with economic conditions and other factors).

50% thought that global warming (if it does exist) was attributable to natural causes.

So what differentiates believers and non-believers?

Faith in/understanding of science. Understanding of probabilistic terms like ‘extremely likely’ (IPCC) meaning ‘95% chance of

occurring’.

Political and ideological position (2013: only 50% of Republicans/88% of Democrats believed in climate change –

divergence after Kyoto Protocol, 1997).

Education/age/social class/media consumption…..

And individual psychology, including cognitive biases and underlying unconscious values and attitudes.

3. Our sense of personal vulnerability

One cognitive bias particularly relevant:

‘optimism bias’where people overestimate the likelihood of

positive events happening to them and underestimate the likelihood of negative events.

It’s very common.

We think that our marriages will succeed, our start-up businesses will be successful and that we will have a long and happy life.

Individual smokers think that they will be the ones who won’t get cancer.

Some people more extreme than others (dispositional optimism).

Personal vulnerability to climate change

People think that climate change will affect other places (spatial bias) and future generations (temporal bias).

It won’t affect them.

Defence mechanism, supported by biased information processing.

Optimism bias and information processing

Neural activity measured as participants estimated their probability of experiencing various negative events.

They were then presented with real information.

People more likely to change estimate only if new information was better than originally anticipated.

This bias was reflected in the fMRI data.Reduced level of neural coding of undesirable

information in a critical region of the frontal cortex (the right inferior prefrontal gyrus).

Optimism bias is characterised by selective information processing.

We used eye-tracking to measure biases in processing climate change messages

Participants read articles online with arguments for (‘bad’ news) and against (‘good’ news) climate change in adjacent paras.

Used eye-tracking to analyse individual fixations.

Measured dispositional optimism.

Hotspot analysis of gaze fixations of optimists/non-optimists reading arguments against (first para) and for climate change

(second para).

Optimists Non-Optimists

Results

Optimists spent less time attending to any arguments about climate changes.

Optimists had significantly shorter fixation durations than non-optimists on arguments for climate change.

Optimists concentrated more on arguments against climate change.

Effects of attentional bias

When asked to summarise:

2/3 of non-optimists framed recall in terms of the arguments for climate change (‘this article is about global warming and how 95% of it is due to human activity’).

2/3 of optimists framed it as a debate between two opposing positions (‘it’s about climate change, about trying to understand what’s happening with the weather and there are different points of view’).

Optimism bias and sense of personal vulnerability

What is the probability of you personally being affected by climate change:

Optimists: 36.5%Non-optimists: 56.8%

Implications?

Messages about climate change may not be getting through because of an inherent cognitive bias designed to sustain our mood state (more severe for dispositional optimists).

A more positive overall frame about possible solutions should increase both feelings of self-efficacy and visual attention to the underlying message.

4. Our sense of personal responsibility:

Stern (2006): ‘Human activities are a major driver of this

rapid change in our climate…

particularly patterns of consumption and energy use, driven by consumer demand for higher standards of living.’

Unilever’s ‘Sustainable Living Plan’:

KPI: ‘Halve the greenhouse gas impact of our products across the lifecycle by 2020.’

1. Reduced GHG emissions from manufacturing chain.2. Reduced deforestation. 3. Doubled their use of renewable energy.4. Produced concentrated liquids and powders.5. Reduced GHG emissions from transport.6. Reduced GHG emissions from refrigeration.7. Reduced employee travel.

The result:

‘Our GHG footprint impact per consumer has ………..increased by around 5% since 2010.’

‘We have made good progress in those areas under our control but the big challenges are those areas not under our direct control like…..consumer behaviour.’

Make it easier for consumers?

‘Customers want to do more in the fight against climate change if only we can make it easier and more affordable’ (Terry Leahy, CEO Tesco, 2007).

Market research surveys consistently supported this.

Carbon labelling introduced.

Huge undertaking1.The start of Leahy’s ‘Green Revolution’, to be

led by consumer demand to drive the market.2.It had worked with health info on food.3.Tesco planned to label all 70,000 own brand

products.4.Several months to calculate the carbon

footprint of each individual product.5.Consumers should now choose the low

carbon footprint alternatives.6.But how did consumers actually behave?

The response?

They didn’t behave as they should, in terms of actually buying the low carbon products.

And….they hardly looked at the carbon labels.

Very significant ‘value-action’ gap (even when course of action is clear).

Gaze fixations by product(first 5 secs.)

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5. Behaviour and action

The ‘value-action’ gap.

Shown in many aspects of environmental behaviour.

But is there really a ‘value-action’ gap?(a discrepancy between attitudes to carbon and behaviour)

The definition of an attitude:

‘a mental and neural state of readiness organised through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s responseto all objects and situations with which it is related.’

(Allport, 1935)

How do we measure attitudes?

You ask people to report their attitudes (often on a Likert Scale) – explicit attitudes.

• 70% of participants reported a preference for low carbon footprint products.

• 26% no preference.• 4% of participants preference for high carbon

footprint products.

But Allport also said:

‘Often an attitude seemed to have no representation in consciousness

other than a vague sense of need, or some indefinite or unanalyzable feeling of doubt, assent, conviction, effort, or familiarity.’

Measuring attitudes that elude conscious introspection

Use a computerised classification task (IAT) to measure associations in the brain.

Measures association between ‘low’ or ‘high carbon footprint’ with concepts of ‘good’ or ‘bad’?

Reaction time difference in judgment tasks.

Low versus high carbon footprint.The picture can't be displayed.

High carbon footprintLow carbon footprint

Good or High Carbon Footprint Vs.Bad or Low Carbon Footprint.

Goodor

High carbon footprint

Bador

Low carbon footprint

How do explicit and implicit attitudes connect?

• No significant correlation in this domain (statistically dissociated.

• Many ‘surface greens’ with a reported positive attitude to low carbon but actually a positive implicit attitude to high carbon.

The psychology of the ‘surface greens’

Understanding these conflicted individuals may be critical.

They may be very common.

They have not been identified as a group thus far(miscategorised by DEFRA and everyone else).

Attitudes and behaviour

Both explicit/implicit attitudes predict behaviour in different domains, and in different circumstances.

IAT is a better predictor of spontaneous behaviours when behaviour is under cognitive, emotional or time pressure.

IAT is a better predictor of behaviour in sensitive domains (including racial discrimination and environmental issues).

Our research Implicit attitude to carbon footprint predicts choice of

low carbon products under time pressure.

Implicit attitude to carbon footprint predictsunconscious eye fixations on climate change images and carbon labels.

Rethink the ‘value-action’ gap and behaviour change.

Implicit attitudes can be modified (using emotive film).

Beattie and McGuire (2020) ‘Environment and Behavior’, currently online.

Mobilising the public:Do we need a new approach?

The unconscious was ignored by psychologists for a long time.

But not by all psychologists.

Ernest Dichter and smoking.

Critical to identify the deeperpsychological functions of smoking

Self-reward (legitimate excuse for interrupting work)

Never alone with a cigarette, warm glow (fire) –Strand, Embassy.

Relieve tension (self-adaptor: oral gratification in an adult way).

Not afraid to discuss unconscious motivations.

Not afraid to disregard people’s self-reports.

Or their personal accounts or narratives as explanations of their own behaviour.

The fight against the science

Tobacco companies wanted to open a great ‘debate’ about the effects of smoking on health.

Created the Council for Tobacco Research in 1953 to fund research.

Enlisted some great academics (Hans Selye: stress that kills, not smoking; Hans Eysenck: smoking confounded with personality).

Encouraging the ‘Green Revolution’

We need to help explain the science better and clear up conceptual confusions.

Climate change messages must be designed to overcome optimism bias. We cannot just scare people(‘this house is on fire’).

We need to increase people’s feelings of self-efficacy and response efficacy when it comes to their actions. They are crucial to making a difference.

Encouraging the ‘Green Revolution’ Self-reported attitudes to carbon might lull us into a false

sense of security. We need to find measures of implicit attitude.

We need to understand that many people have implicit and explicit attitudes to carbon that are dissociated.

We need to find new ways of identifying these individuals.

We need different strategies for different groups and countries (the barriers will be different).

Encouraging the ‘Green Revolution’

What do these individuals see? What do they attend to?

We need to work on changing our implicit attitude to carbon products and lifestyles by influencing our underlying associative networks.

The smoking industry showed that such a change is possible, with significant behavioural implications (its one legacy).

Slide Number 1We need a green revolutionClimate changeSo why hasn’t the message about climate change got through?�Slide Number 51. Understanding2. BeliefSo what differentiates believers and non-believers?��3. Our sense of personal vulnerabilitySlide Number 10Personal vulnerability to climate changeOptimism bias and information processingSlide Number 13We used eye-tracking to measure biases in processing climate change messagesHotspot analysis of gaze fixations of optimists/non-optimists reading arguments against (first para) and for climate change (second para).ResultsEffects of attentional biasSlide Number 18Implications?�4. Our sense of personal responsibility:Unilever’s ‘Sustainable Living Plan’:�The result:Make it easier for consumers?��Huge undertakingThe response?Gaze fixations by product�(first 5 secs.)5. Behaviour and actionSlide Number 29Slide Number 30But is there really a ‘value-action’ gap?� (a discrepancy between attitudes to carbon and behaviour)How do we measure attitudes?�But Allport also said:��Measuring attitudes that elude conscious introspection Low versus high carbon footprint.Good or High Carbon Footprint Vs.�Bad or Low Carbon Footprint.�How do explicit and implicit attitudes connect?The psychology of the ‘surface greens’Attitudes and �behaviourOur research Mobilising the public:�Do we need a new approach?Critical to identify the deeper psychological functions of smokingSlide Number 43Slide Number 44Slide Number 45The fight against the scienceEncouraging the ‘Green Revolution’Encouraging the ‘Green Revolution’Encouraging the ‘Green Revolution’ Slide Number 50